Hourglass
by Crazy-Comet-97
Summary: To Henry, ever since his death at the hands of the captain of his ship, he has come to realize there are things within a life, even like his own, that he cannot avoid. He cannot understand his curse or how his body works anymore and soon, finds out it's changed more than he thought possible. MPREG


Henry honestly didn't know why it was happening. Or how, for that matter.

Ever since he had 'died' and then come back, his body as well as his lack of knowledge on its processes of when he died and how it kept him alive in whatever void takes him before spitting him back out, there were some things he could always count out.

1 – Death was slow, no matter how fast it seemed to be in the moment.

2 – Death was painful, always unmedically painful and crushing and burning.

3 – Death, by some miracle or cadence spoken from beyond the void, brings life with it.

The last, Henry hadn't counted on. At least, not until the 10th year of his inflection where, he alone in his living room on New Year's Eve 1824, did he feel amiss.

Stricken with pain in his midsection since the early morning in bed, Henry hadn't left his lodgings all day in fear of death taking him once again in public, the pain having become worse since then. He had attempted to leave in order to attend hospital, but found himself looking in the mirror as he went to grab his coat and stood there, stunned.

Upon his once rather slim figure sat a bump above his pelvic region, broaching out his waistcoat and trousers with considerable size, straining against their collective buttons, keeping it as captive as they could while Henry watched in horror as it seemed to grow before his eyes, his already unbearably tight clothing becoming more constricted by the minute.

Being once a man of considerable fortune, but also one of brain as had studied to be a physician after all, Henry knew the aliment he was under quite quickly, being there was only one of several that could cause something like this, but this singled it down to an impossibility that even he could believe until a fluttering was felt, deep under the layers of skin, terrifying and confusing him.

A guest.

More than a guest.

A child.

In his shock over the fact that not only was his body changing before him, but also growing a new person without either ability nor consent, Henry's medical brain came to the forefront, filled with images of experimentation, endless testing, children and infants screaming as they're taken from his arms and put into others to be harmed. His life, their lives, under constant watch and call, forever.

Terrified, he had locked himself in his home to bar guests from attending his residence, the nightmare he had been thrown into continuing without pause, his clothing having not had the ability to hold in the growth and making the buttons on his dress shirt burst open with several pings, his trousers holding steady for a little while longer, till they as well, gave up and soon fell down his legs, almost tripping him.

Laying a hand on the now visible and smooth, yet red and angry skin, the movements of the child were strong and while his brain was screaming at him to **_kill it, oh god it cannot be human, kill it! _**– he was not able to as eventually as the night wore on, it grew so large and ungainly in a matter of moments that it pinned him to his bedroom floor where he had retreated, growling angrily with awful distended red lines along its sides and it's occupant lying and moving on everything beneath it, making his back smart and his ribs and pelvis ache something fiercely.

Finally, when the grandfather clock within the hall of his home was showing it to be near 11:30 PM, the growth slowed to a complete stop, leaving Henry fighting for breath to reach his lungs, the growth moving with him as he attempted to get up from his back onto his behind, his lungs instantly regaining their ability to keep his body working as his did, the bump now having moved to settle in his lap heavily as a result.

Shuffling to grab a hold of his bedframe, Henry managed to very carefully pull himself up onto his feet from the carpet to move, his back and hips now smarting with every step he took as his lungs worked overtime to find the oxygen they needed to be of any use to him, while he stared at himself in horror within the mirror.

In a matter of only few hours, the small bump that had fitted on his figure before now protruded so far in front of him, he could seldom see his feet, much less lose his balance and crack his skull open should he venture forth to look over it and see if they still existed. It was also rather heavy as well, his back aching with the strain of having to carry it around for so long and his shirt lying limply on its sides, proving that it had no care for basic needs such as fitting clothing in one's society.

Still in shock, but fascinated, his hands quickly went to exploring his newfound appendage, him letting out a few squeaks of surprised noise as the child within responded, kicking and shuffling as he squeezed and poked at its home, clearly not happy with being annoyed despite it being gentle.

Still in quite haze, even as time wore on, Henry barely noticed the child shifting until around 11:55 PM, in whereas he made his way out to living room to clean the table of his brandy he had gotten out to drink when the New Year came in the day previous, he had to stop for the child suddenly did a giant spin inside of him, causing him to feel extremely ill to the point of wanting to vomit.

Hand cupping his stomach and other on the wall to steady him, Henry stayed in the threshold of the entranceway for a while before he righted himself, pausing again when he felt a cramp filter though his insides. Grunting, he decided it would be best instead, to just press on. He needed to clean up, shut off the lights and go back into his bedroom or even his study perhaps where he could figure out this problem alone and in peace.

However, it seemed the child had other ideas than his, for as soon as he had put the brandy in it's cabinet and had started closing the curtains, another much fiercer cramp filtered though, causing him to wince and a hand to rub impatiently at the surface underneath the protruding mass.

The child, as rapidly as it grew and as heavy as it currently felt, must be as uncomfortable as he was.

Thankfully, turning the lights off was the easiest task and despite the feeling of achiness spreading form his hips and back to his whole pelvic region, he wandered back to his bedroom, a hand firmly placed on his back in order to possibly keep it from breaking in two as he made his way from one room into another, groaning as he lowered himself to the bed.

Nevertheless, he would have no idea that his night was only just beginning, for as soon as the clock struck 12:00 AM on January 1st, 1825, did a sudden shake run through the lower half of his body, before there was a feeling of something inside him suddenly popping, like an abscess being cut open by an unsteady hand, before his bed covers and his underwear was entirely saturated in pinkish sweet smelling fluid, his stomach suddenly gripping onto itself like a vice and leaving Henry breathless and in agony once again.

Panicked, Henry quickly reached down and touched the slightly thicker than normal substance, spreading it over his fingers before another cramp washed over him, hand shaving to fall to the wayside to clutch the sheets as his body squeezed him from the inside out, the little one somehow having fallen still during the last few moments of time passing, making him worry more.

All too soon, his greatest, most darkest fears were realized as there became a moment, where battled in pain for the last few hours, Henry found himself on the floor in a cold sweat, a fever having taken over his person somewhere between the substance leaving him and the pain increasing in the hours that had come afterwards, that he felt his body lurch forward, attempting to expel the creature within his body as quickly as it could, the feeling centred in his nethers being something he would not forget as easily as he had other memories.

Screaming and moaning so loud the veins in his neck were on show, Henry's vice like grip on the sheets continued as he complied with his person, knees drawn up to his chest in a position he had seen women in birth take upon working within hospital.

Chin to his chest, he choked on his voice as the child descended within it towards his nethers, the feeling of it terribly painful as his bottom seemed to spasm extremely, like it was preparing to let the child out though it's means. He soon found out, after his pushing seemed to encourage the child towards it, that he might be correct.

As the sun rose though the curtains behind him, after 2 hours or so of pushing the child down, there was a shift in which something opened below him and burned like the fires of _infernum_, stopping him from pushing a she let out a pained howl. Surely, there was something wrong, there was no such exit for this child to come out of his body?

Alas, the burning stretched on and on and left him shaking when it started to settle, a feeling akin to a cork popping off of a champagne bottle in celebration coming to him soon after, leaving him panting before his hand reached over his stomach to see what was hanging between his thighs.

Fingers, experienced with both living and dead patients, made an examination and found not only soft, sticky wet clumps of something like fine down in a blanket, but eyebrow ridges, eyes sockets with fine eyelashes nestled in them, as well as large deposits of warm and soft skin and adipose tissue surrounding a pair of tiny pursed lips and chin.

It truly to his relief and horror, was a human child.

However, despite his discovery, his body did not stop long enough to let him admire it as it clenched down again and he had to leave it be as he whined, feeling it's body turn within him before his body made him draw himself up again, bearing down as the burning feeling returned tenfold.

Making a noise in his throat similar to a grunt, but sounding like a well held in scream in later retrospect, he held his position for a while longer than the pain made him, feeling one of the child's bony shoulder joints leaving him, quickly followed by another and sudden rush of fluids before there was nothing, Henry collapsing backwards as he panted, now able to breathe deeply once more.

The room was bright with sunlight, but the air was silent. It was quiet, too quiet.

Quickly sensing this, Henry pushed himself up despite the pain between his legs, only to find the child he had just birthed as a man, lying limply on the carpet before him, a shade of blue lining it's lips that was rarely seen out of a sky on a spring day back home in London.

Terror hitting him upon realization the child wasn't breathing, Henry scooped it up and pulled himself up into a standing position (despite the cord of the child hanging between him) and took off madly sprinting towards the bathroom a few feet away to retrieve a towel to rub the infant down hard, encouraging it just like before, only this time to cry.

It took a few tries, plus a session of Henry running its feet and back over in hot water, before the shock in it's system seemed to dissipate and it started to turn pink before it gave out an almighty wail, startling Henry, but also proving it was both alive and not happy now being outside of its home.

Henry, now near tears, laughed purely out of shock as he looked the slightly angry infant over as if he was just its paediatrician and not having given birth to it. Other than being a little blue still, she (he had managed to see her private parts while attempting to revive her) looked and felt quite heavy and healthy, despite having only appeared in 24 hours of Henry's life, in and out of womb.

Bundling her up in the towel, he quickly got his pairing knife and severed her from him, the mess she had made with her inside of him soon falling into the toilet with a wet slap, never to be seen again.

Still alarmingly tender, he set about recording everything like a doctor usually would in a journal as she was cradled in his arm. He used his cloth tape measure to measure to height and the scales in his kitchen (poor substitutes for both areas, but thy would do) to measure her birth weight, managing to get it all down before she started to wail again, gummy mouth in a large 'O' as she screamed.

Knowing that by now, he should have been getting ready to leave for an appointment with a long-time friend, Henry quickly bundled himself into clean versions of his discarded clothing and grabbed his papers, pen and other assortment of belongings, trying to soothe the infant to no avail as he buttoned his coat and fitted his top hat to his head.

Knowing he had to do something, he quietly bundled the infant into his coat in order to muffle its cries, knowing that as a single man, being caught with a young child could make him get arrested in his time, thinking he was a kidnapper or black-market purchaser. Neither option would be good.

Eventually, after a crux of indecision and a heavy heart, he finally made up his mind in knowing what to do with her and placed her on the steps of a church in her towel, covering her up to make sure she was warm and that the cold cobblestone stairs wouldn't dare touch her back or skin, before quickly backing away from her like she were a bomb readied to explode and signalling for a horse and cab to stop, nodding stiffly to the coachman as he pushed his way in.

Watching from the shadows inside the cab, he was relieved when the priest who answered the foreign knock on the door he had just left, quickly picked her up after spotting her and took her inside to get her away from the now freshly falling snow, a note pinned to the towel she was wrapped in fluttering in the wind as she was taken into the warm church as the cab rode away.

'Hello,

I write this with a guilty heart, as while I love my child, I cannot care for her properly.  
I wish for her to go to parents who can love her as much as I have these last 2 days.  
My only wish is that she be named Ophelia, should her new parents allow it.

Thankyou.'


End file.
